


look after you

by uselessphillie



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternative Universe - FBI, American AU, Angst, I guess???, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, but like in a fluffy way, stalker!Dan, to save me the hassle of a Brit working at the FBI
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-29 19:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13934007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uselessphillie/pseuds/uselessphillie
Summary: After leaving his life as a lawyer behind, Dan somehow finds himself working as the director of Project Orion, the FBI's secret technology hacking project meant to monitor and prevent criminal activity. But when Dan is assigned the case of Phil Lester, a youtuber-turned-radio-presenter that he's been watching for more than a decade, will he be able to leave behind his feelings for Phil in order to do his job?or, the "FBI agent watching you" fic that I accidentally got invested in writing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Is this meme dead yet? I can't keep up with the kids these days. Anyway, this is all [ amazingphiw](https://amazingphiw.tumblr.com)'s fault, go bother her about it.
> 
> (ily violet, thanks for all the encouragement)

Dan Howell never imagined that his law degree would amount to anything besides a mountain of boring textbooks and a mountain of debt. Although he’d gotten a job at a well-respected firm after finishing his JD, he couldn’t stand the idea of becoming a criminal attorney like his father before him. Too much pressure, too much sadness, too much money that felt tainted by the blood of innocent victims.

It’s how he finds himself standing outside the doors of the main building of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Headquarters, waiting for the new batch of recruits to arrive, contemplating what a strange turn his life has taken.

The plain black van pulls up and the recruits pile out of it, bright-eyed and eager and probably more than a little afraid. He remembers that feeling of his first day on the job, the mix of excitement and terror that comes with trying to start your life over.

There’s five of them in total, three women and two men. Dan’s already memorized their case files, probably knows more about them than they know about themselves.

(It’s sort of an occupational hazard for him.)

“Good morning. I’m Special Agent Daniel Howell; you can just call me Dan, though. For the next three weeks, I’ll be overseeing your training on Project Orion. You report to me and only to me, is that clear?

“Yes, sir,” the recruits respond in unison.

“Good. We have a new batch of assignments coming in today, so I’ll show you to your workstations and we’ll get started.”

***

Project Orion had started as a joke, sort of.

Dan’s ~~older~~ more mature colleagues at the FBI might be tech-savvy geniuses with access to some truly insane government secrets, but they’re certainly not privy to the latest memes making their rounds on Tumblr. The “FBI agent watching you” jokes are abundant and honestly pretty funny. In particular, the outlandish implication that there’s an agent assigned to every single person with a webcam had cracked him up, so much so that’s he’d started sharing a few of his favorite posts with his friends in Surveillance.

The line between meme and reality had gotten a bit blurry, after that.

***

“The process is quite simple really, when you break it down,” Dan is saying. “You’ll receive a case file with all the information we currently have on the target, as well as a detailed hacking procedure from your liaison in Tech Ops. Everything the target does goes in your daily report. And I mean _everything_. I don’t care if all they do watch furry porn and read Wikipedia pages about dolphins, it goes in the report. You can flag anything you think is suspicious.”

One of the female recruits raises her hand. “Agent Howell, what about the ethical implications of all this?” She’s flipping through the stack of case files on her desk. “I mean, there’s hardly probable cause for some of these cases, and – “

“Not our department.” Dan cuts her incoming rant short. Everyone always wants to know about the ethics. He’s learned that it’s better not to dwell on it. Thinking too much means caring too much.

“But – “

“I’ll expect your reports on my desk by 5pm. Get to work.”

Dan can feel the eyes of the recruits boring holes in his back as he makes his way to his office and shuts the door behind him. He really needs to promote someone to do all the trainings for him, they’re _exhausting_. Project Orion is his baby, but he’d gladly pass along some of the grunt work so he could spend some more time working his own cases.

Speaking of cases…

There’s a single file folder waiting for him on his desk, probably hot off the press from Tech Ops. He’s down to one case at a time due to all the departmental expansion he’s overseeing, but PJ always makes sure to pick a good one out for him.

He settles down in front of his monitors with a cup of tea, and opens the file folder to find a…familiar name.

_Philip Michael Lester._

***

Dan is 18, and lonely.

His high school experience has left him with bruises on his ribs in the shape of a foot and careful pinky-white lines on the inside of his thighs. The path behind him is grey and dull and you know what? The path ahead is too, tree-lined with heavy law texts and plain, ill-fitting suits.

And then there’s Phil.

 _AmazingPhil_ , to be precise, bright and bursting with color and locked away behind Dan’s computer screen. And Dan is maybe a little in love with him, even then, a harmless fanboy crush born out of nothing more than a handful of smiles when everything else seemed fake. A handful of nights turning a razor over and over in his hands, letting Phil’s voice lull him to sleep instead.

It’s enough, for now.

***

Dan is 22, and it’s not enough anymore.

He’s drowning, drowning, on dry land and buried under a mountain of essays that are always due tomorrow and when he gets too tired to write he starts carving out flowers in his skin instead, he got bored of straight lines so long ago, so long ago.

Phil cuts his hair a bit, so Dan cuts his too, googles _how to be happy_

~~like Phil~~

but there’s 617,000,000 results returned in 0.38 seconds and he just doesn’t really know what to do with that.

***

Dan is 25.

Phil, behind his screen, says _I just need to pursue what I really love, I hope you guys will understand_ , and Dan says _I do_ and _fuck this_ and turns in his two weeks’ notice to a lawyer who had never even bothered to learn his name.

***

Dan is 29, and lonely.

He goes to work and watches regular people (and occasionally criminals) live their lives on a screen. He goes home and types in the most familiar url he knows, watches the most familiar man he knows waffle on to his thousands of listeners on the radio about how he thinks the new Muse stuff is sub-par but he can’t stop listening anyway, watches him bob his head and smile when his favorite song comes on, watches, watches, watches.

Dan is maybe a little in love with him, even now.

***

_Philip Michael Lester._

Dan closes the case file as quickly as he’d opened it, tries to regulate his breathing a bit. It’s a fairly common name, Philip. It could be a different one, a name twin.

(It’s not.)

The hacking procedure is familiar by now, his fingers fly over the keys and within a matter of minutes, Phil appears on the screen in front of him. His Phil. The one he’s been following for over a decade. With his hair pushed back and glasses dangling precariously on the edge of his nose.

It occurs to Dan then that he is maybe, possibly, a bit fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The contents of Phil's file are loosely based around [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/government-tracking-google-searches). If reading this fic is making you paranoid about your government, then I feel like I'm doing my job alright.

He probably shouldn’t, but Dan allows himself a couple moments of just _looking_ at Phil. He seems tired, dark circles blooming on delicate skin and eyes a bit red behind his glasses, like he hasn’t slept in days. Dan glances at the time ticking away in the bottom right of his screen, it’s barely half-seven in the morning.  

( _Self-diagnosed insomnia_ is there in Phil’s file of course, on the page titled under _Illnesses & Ailments_, jotted down just above _chronic migraines_.)

Dan hasn’t gotten that far in the file yet, but the corners of his mouth turn down anyway, the same way they did when he’d been listening to Phil complain about it on the radio show this week.

Phil is obviously reading something on his laptop screen, eyes darting rapidly from side to side. With shaky hands, Dan starts up the screen recording on his secondary monitor. What could Phil have been up all night researching? He closes his eyes as the software cycles through it security protocol, praying that he’s not about to come face-to-face with a money laundering spreadsheet, or a chat log with some drug lord, or –   

The connection stabilizes.

It’s a Wikipedia article about koalas. Dan exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Of course it is. He smiles a bit around his concern for Phil’s sleep schedule (and yet unfounded criminal activity). Dan is no stranger to falling into late-night Wikipedia holes, although his usually conclude before the sun has the audacity to show itself.

His relief is short-lived, however, as he glances down at the file on his desk, a file which is almost certainly not filled solely with koala-related searches.  

Dan is not nearly caffeinated enough to deal with this.

***

He’s busy willing his hands to stop shaking for long enough to stir cream into his coffee when a hand on his shoulder nearly startles him into the next dimension.

“New recruits driving you to drink already, hm?” PJ jokes as he reaches into a cabinet for a mug.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Dan responds. “Keep it up, and I’ll convince John that you’re the perfect person to conduct the next round of trainings. You know how persuasive I can be! _PJ just has such a lovely personality, the recruits would respond so well to him, Tech Ops is overstaffed anyway_ – “

“That is not true, and you know it!” PJ points an accusatory finger at him, even though he’s smiling. “If anything, we’re understaffed! Have you heard of this Project Orion thing? Sopping up the budget the rest of us are so desperate for, it’s a disaster, really – “

“Alright, alright, enough.” Dan’s laughing now, some of the weight on his chest carried away. At least he’s made one friend here.

PJ fills his mug and slings an arm jovially around Dan’s shoulder, steering him back towards his office. _You’re too bright for this place_ , Dan thinks, watching PJ’s easy smile and loose curls flopping into his eyes as they walk.

“…at the file I gave you yet? Guy’s search history is a trip, eh?”

Dan hasn’t really been listening. “Sorry, what? Must’ve zoned out for a second.”

PJ rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. They’ve arrived at the door to Dan’s office. “I asked about the file I pulled for you. It’s a good one, no?”

Dan chokes on a sip of his coffee. “I – uh, well, is it? I, um, I haven’t gotten a chance to look at it yet. Recruits, and all. So many questions.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of the new recruits, all working quietly at their desks in the open office area.

PJ looks back at Dan, eyes shining. “Right. Lunch today? We can gossip more about it then.”

“We can’t gossip about the targets, Peej, for fuck’s sake, we’ve been over this.”

“Whatever you say, Howell. 12:30?” He’s already walking away towards the Tech Ops wing.

“Yeah, alright…” Dan calls. PJ waves over his shoulder, disappearing around the corner.

Dan sighs, closing the door to his office behind him before any of the recruits can spot him. He sits back down at his desk, carefully avoiding looking at the File and shaking his mouse to bring the monitors back to life. Phil is no longer there, the live screen recording gone dark. Dan scrubs a hand down his face, trying to convince himself that he doesn’t already miss the sight of it.

Because that would be ridiculous. And very much against protocol.

_Thinking too much means caring too much. Don’t overthink it. Just open the damn file._

***

_Page 1_

_Philip Michael Lester_

_DOB 01/30/1987_

_Current Address: 2221 I St. NW, Apt. 45, Washington, D.C. 20036_

_Flagged Searches (last 30 days): 12 (see page 7 for details)_

_Flagged Locations (last 60 days): 2 (see page 11 for details)_

_Flagged Relationships: Martyn Lester, brother (see page 19 for details)_

***

_Page 7_

**_03/02/2018 01:16:23 google results:_ ** _cheap pressure cookers for sale_

**_03/02/2018 01:21:12 google results:_ ** _how much pressure is in a pressure cooker_

**_03/02/2018 01:25:58 google results:_ ** _can a pressure cooker explode????_

**_03/02/2018 02:04:34 google news results_ ** _: exploding kitchen appliances_

**_03/06/2018 13:12:56 google results:_ ** _big BIG backpacks_

**_03/06/2018 15:59:21 google maps:_ ** _backpack stores near me_

**_03/06/2018 16:12:11 amazon.com/luggage-and-travel-gear:_ ** _black backpacks_

**_03/11/2018 04:24:57 google results:_ ** _how to know if I need stitches_

**_03/11/2018 04:26:32 google results:_ ** _what’s the best time to go to the hospital_

**_03/11/2018 04:29:21 google results:_ ** _how many people can fit in the hospital at once_

**_03/11/2018 04:35:01 google results:_ ** _how to remove blood stains_

**_03/11/2018 04:41:23 google results:_ ** _how to hide blood stains from my family_

_***_

_Page 11_

**_03/07/2018 11:23:43_ ** _Hill’s Kitchen Supply Store, 713 D St. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003 (see page 23 for security footage)_

**_03/12/2018 17:04:45_ ** _1851 Columbia Rd. NW, Apt. 14, Washington, D.C., 20009. Residence of Martyn Lester, brother. (see page 19)_

***

_Page 19_

_Martyn Lester_

_DOB 10/30/1985_

_Current Address: 1851 Columbia Rd. NW, Apt. 14, Washington, D.C., 20009_

_Flagged Searches (past 30 days): 1 (HIGH PRIORITY)_

**_03/12/2018 14:06:54 google results:_ ** _can you make a bomb at home_

***

PJ starts the questioning before Dan can even take a bite of his lunch.

“So? What do you think? Is he building a bomb or not?”

“I don’t know. We can’t talk about this.” Dan rests his head in his hands; he’s got a headache steadily setting in between his eyes. “This isn’t happening,” he mumbles under his breath.

“What’s not happening?”

Dan looks up, having already forgotten PJ’s presence. “Nothing. Nothing is not happening, everything’s fine. He’s not building a bomb, everything’s fine.”

Everything’s not fine, because Dan _knows_ Phil, well, not really, but close enough. Dan shouldn’t even have this case, he should have marched into PJ’s office as soon as he saw the name on the File and had him give it to someone else. Because if he’s remembering his days as a recruit correctly, spying on a boy you’re probably in love with is definitely against FBI protocol.

Everything’s not fine, because _his Phil_ might be building a bomb with his brother and that’s probably not going to be great for Dan’s mental health in the long run.

It occurs to Dan, for the second time in the span of half a work day, that he is maybe, possibly, _definitely_ , a bit fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [ moon-boye](https://moon-boye.tumblr.com)


End file.
